Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 1 eBook

Ebenezer Cobham Brewer
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 804 pages of information about Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 1.

Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 1 eBook

Ebenezer Cobham Brewer
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 804 pages of information about Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 1.

DU’MARIN, the husband of Cym’oent, and father of Marinel.—­Spenser, Fairy Queen, in. 4.

DUMAS (Alexandre D.), in 1845, published sixty volumes.

The most skillful copyist, writing 12 hours a day, can with difficulty do 3,900 letters in an hour, which gives him 46,800 per diem, or 60 pages of a romance.  Thus he could copy 5 volumes octavo per month and 60 in a year, supposing that he did not lose one second of time, but worked without ceasing 12 hours every day thoughout the entire year.—­De Mirecourt, Dumas Pere (1867).

DUMB OX (The). St. Thomas Aqui’nas was so called by his fellow-students at Cologne, from his taciturnity and dreaminess.  Sometimes called “The Great Dumb Ox of Sicily.”  He was larged-bodied, fat, with a brown complexion, and a large head partly bald.

Of a truth, it almost makes me laugh To see men leaving the golden grain, To gather in piles the pitiful chaff That old Peter Lombard thrashed with his brain, To have it caught up and tossed again On the horns of the Dumb Ox of Cologne.

Longfellow, The Golden Legend.

(Thomas Aquinas was subsequently called “The Angelic Doctor,” and the
“Angel of the Schools,” 1224-1274.)

DUMBIEDIKES (The old laird of), an exacting landlord, taciturn and obstinate.

The laird of Dumbiedikes had hitherto been moderate in his exactions ... but when a stout, active young fellow appeared ... he began to think so broad a pair of shoulders might bear an additional burden.  He regulated, indeed, his management of his dependants as carters do their horses, never failing to clap an additional brace of hundred-weights on a new and willing horse.—­Chap. 8 (1818).

The young laird of Dumbiedikes (3 syl.), a bashful young laird, in love with Jeanie Deans, but Jeanie marries the Presbyterian minister, Reuben Butler.—­Sir W. Scott, Heart of Midlothian (time, George II.).

DUM’MERAR (The Rev. Dr.), a friend of Sir Geoffrey Peveril.—­Sir W. Scott, Peveril of the Peak (time, Charles II.).

DUMMY or SUPERNUMERARY.  “Celimene,” in the Precieuses Ridicules, does not utter a single word, although she enters with other characters on the stage.

DUMTOUS’TIE (Mr. Daniel), a young barrister, and nephew of Lord Bladderskate.—­Sir W. Scott, Redgauntlet (time, George III.).

DUN (Squire), the hangman who came between Richard Brandon and Jack Ketch.

  And presently a halter got,
  Made of the best strong hempen teer,
  And ere a cat could lick his ear,
  Had tied him up with as much art
  As Dun himself could do for’s heart.

Cotton, Virgil Travestied, iv. (1677).

DUN COW (The), slain by Sir Guy of Warwick on Dunsmore Heath, was the cow kept by a giant in Mitchel Fold [middle-fold], Shropshire.  Its milk was inexhaustible.  One day an old woman, who had filled her pail, wanted to fill her sieve also with its milk, but this so enraged the cow that it broke away, and wandered to Dunsmore, where it was killed.

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Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol. 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.